The following description relates to fluid jet cutting devices, for example, a fluid jet cutting device for sectioning materials. In one application, the fluid jetting device may be used to section materials for analytical sample preparation.
In a typical fluid jet cutting system, a fluid, such as water, is forced through a nozzle to generate a high-pressure fluid jet having a pressure from 35,000 to 100,000 psi and a velocity of up to three times the speed of sound. The high-pressure fluid jet may be used to cut through, for example, non-metallic materials including rubber, plastic, wood and cloth. A cutting power of the high-pressure fluid jet may be enhanced by adding abrasive particles into the stream to produce an abrasive fluid jet. An abrasive fluid jet may be used to cut, for example, metals including steel, aluminum and titanium, hard non-metals such rock and concrete and other hard materials including armor plate, certain ceramic and tool steel. The abrasive particles are typically garnet, silica and/or aluminum oxide.
The work piece may generally be positioned to lie on a bed of slats above a catcher tank. The slats are typically spaced apart by a distance to allow a sufficient amount of the high-pressure fluid jet to pass therethrough, so that energy from the high-pressure fluid jet may be dissipated by a volume of fluid in the underlying catcher tank. In addition, the high-pressure fluid jet typically cuts the slats, in addition to the work piece, so that the slats are considered consumable and must be replaced on a regular basis.
Control of the cutting head and the nozzle may be manual or preprogrammed. However, for preprogrammed cutting movement of the nozzle, a data or program file typically needs to be imported into the system, for example, from a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software program. That is, movement of the cutting head or nozzle may not be programmed directly into a user interface of the system to allow for automatic or autonomous movement of the nozzle or cutting head. Accordingly, operation of the system may be difficult for untrained personnel such as those lacking specialized or dedicated training systems or those unfamiliar with CAD software programs.
Fluid jet cutting systems are typically configured for large scale production use, and require complex set-up and programming. A typical fluid jet cutting device may have a footprint of approximately 50 sq. ft. As such, traditional fluid jet cutting systems are not well suited for non-production or operating environments such as laboratories. In addition, because of their size traditional fluid jet cutting systems are not well suited for cutting smaller work pieces, or, a work piece into smaller pieces, for example of widths less than 1 inch. Smaller work pieces or sample pieces may be desirable for use in, for example, metallographic analysis. In addition, the spacing between individual slats of the bed of slats is typically too large for catching or capturing samples from a work piece small enough for use in metallographic analysis. However, reducing a distance between the slats may negatively impact energy absorption of fluid jet by the fluid in the catcher tank.
Typically, a sample for metallographic analysis is prepared with a metallographic abrasive cutter. An abrasive cutter typically includes a circular abrasive blade spinning along an axis of rotation. The blade will remove a plane of material from a work piece in its path in a direction of rotation. The work piece is typically placed on a bed and clamped using a vise. The bed and/or blade can typically be moved in three axes in order to position the blade with respect to the specimen or work piece. However, this configuration typically requires multiple cuts to be made in order to produce a sufficiently small sample from the work piece at a desired area of interest. In addition, heat or force from the blade may damage the work piece, and in turn, the sample.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a fluid jet cutting device suitably sized for use in non-production settings such as a laboratory and for cutting small samples or specimens from a work piece.